Politics after Christendom: Political Theology in a Fractured World

By David VanDrunen

For more than a millennium, beginning in the early Middle Ages, most Western Christians lived in societies that sought to be comprehensively Christian--ecclesiastically, economically, legally, and politically. That is to say, most Western Christians lived in Christendom. But in a gradual process beginning a few hundred years ago, Christendom weakened and finally crumbled. Today, most Christians in the world live in pluralistic political communities. And Christians themselves have very different opinions about what to make of the demise of Christendom and how to understand their status and responsibilities in a post-Christendom world.

Politics After Christendom argues that Scripture leaves Christians well-equipped for living in a world such as this. Scripture gives no indication that Christians should strive to establish some version of Christendom. Instead, it prepares them to live in societies that are indifferent or hostile to Christianity, societies in which believers must live faithful lives as sojourners and exiles. Politics After Christendom explains what Scripture teaches about political community and about Christians' responsibilities within their own communities.

As it pursues this task, Politics After Christendom makes use of several important theological ideas that Christian thinkers have developed over the centuries. These ideas include Augustine's Two-Cities concept, the Reformation Two-Kingdoms category, natural law, and a theology of the biblical covenants. Politics After Christendom brings these ideas together in a distinctive way to present a model for Christian political engagement. In doing so, it interacts with many important thinkers, including older theologians (e.g., Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin), recent secular political theorists (e.g., Rawls, Hayek, and Dworkin), contemporary political-theologians (e.g., Hauerwas, O'Donovan, and Wolterstorff), and contemporary Christian cultural commentators (e.g., MacIntyre, Hunter, and Dreher).

Part 1 presents a political theology through a careful study of the biblical story, giving special attention to the covenants God has established with his creation and how these covenants inform a proper view of political community. Part 1 argues that civil governments are legitimate but penultimate, and common but not neutral. It concludes that Christians should understand themselves as sojourners and exiles in their political communities. They ought to pursue justice, peace, and excellence in these communities, but remember that these communities are temporary and thus not confuse them with the everlasting kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christians' ultimate citizenship is in this new-creation kingdom.

Part 2 reflects on how the political theology developed in Part 1 provides Christians with a framework for thinking about perennial issues of political and legal theory. Part 2 does not set out a detailed public policy or promote a particular political ideology. Rather, it suggests how Christians might think about important social issues in a wise and theologically sound way, so that they might be better equipped to respond well to the specific controversies they face today. These issues include race, religious liberty, family, economics, justice, rights, authority, and civil resistance. After considering these matters, Part 2 concludes by reflecting on the classical liberal and conservative traditions, as well as recent challenges to them by nationalist and progressivist movements.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Release date: Apr 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9780310108856

David VanDrunen

David VanDrunen (PhD, Loyola University Chicago) is the Robert B. Strimple Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido, California.

Book preview

FOREWORD

It is clear that the church in the West is facing a political situation in which it has lost most, if not all, of its traditional power and influence. If this happened in Europe over an extended period of time in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it is occurring with startling speed in the Americas in the twenty-first. Many Christians feel a mix of creeping fear and vertiginous confusion as things such as marriage and gender—upon which everyone, Christian and non-Christian, seemed to agree in the recent past—are now points of conflict. Ordinary believers find themselves decried as idiots at best and bigots at worst simply for holding to traditional moral norms. Once unquestioned social virtues, such as freedom of speech and religion, are now coming under pressure as popular opinion moves against them. And many Christians have no idea how to respond.

What we are witnessing is the undoing of the project that began in the fourth century. First, Constantine granted Christianity legal toleration within the Roman empire. Then the Empire adopted Christianity as its official religion. Thus began a close and fruitful connection between what we now call the secular state and the church. It is the last vestiges of the cultural fruits of this—the close correlation between Christian virtues and civic values—that is rapidly dissolving before our eyes. Many Christians are concerned that we now face the unknown without the resources to begin to address the situation.

In fact, as David VanDrunen makes clear in this book, there is no need to panic or despair. The situation that has been the historical norm, a close connection between Christianity and the values of the wider culture, is actually the theological exception. Nothing in the Bible should lead us to think that the church would ever have enjoyed the political power and cultural cachet it did for some 1,500 years. The New Testament presents the church as community of sojourners, of pilgrims, whose home is not in this world.

There is an obvious danger with this (obvious) New Testament teaching: it might tempt Christians to abandon civic life entirely and become sectarians or cultists, huddling together in some isolated compound waiting for the end of time. But that is not necessary and is arguably as unbiblical as the theocratic pretensions of its opposite—the theonomists of the political right and left. As VanDrunen demonstrates, the Bible points to resources that allow a thoughtful Christian to respond to the current changes in society without becoming either isolationists or those who engage in futile efforts to reinstate some putative Christian commonwealth (which was always more real in the imagination of those who confuse church and nation than in reality). It is possible to be a Christian citizen without the state being Christianized.

Yet VanDrunen offers Protestants more than simply a model for understanding how the church and the secular state should relate. He also opens up possibilities for social and ethical thinking that are needed at a time when technology, especially in the sphere of medicine, raises challenges so complex and so constantly changing that few of us know where to start thinking about such things, let alone come to clear conclusions.

Roman Catholics have in recent years far outstripped Protestants in thoughtful engagement with our current cultural moment. This is because Rome has a long and deep tradition of social thought built upon careful reflection upon natural law. What VanDrunen does is point Protestants back to our heritage in this matter and supplement it with a distinctively Reformed approach to the present. Building on his early scholarly work, VanDrunen points the reader to a number of biblically grounded concepts—natural law, Augustine’s two cities, the two kingdoms, and the variegated covenant structure of God’s relationship to his creatures. In so doing, he begins the important work of developing the kind of framework for social thought that is going to be of inestimable importance and utility in the coming years.

This is therefore an important book. It is clear and accessible, though built upon a wealth of learning, reading, and careful thought. It should be read—and inwardly digested—by pastors, by teachers, and indeed by any Christian who wishes to understand how the old polarities of Christendom or cult compound are not the biblical way and who wish to develop their political, civic, and ethical thinking in the light of biblical principles. VanDrunen has done the church a great service in his previous scholarly work and an even greater service in now presenting the fruits of that work in this learned and lucid synthesis of his earlier work now applied to our present cultural climate.

Carl R. Trueman, Grove City College

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In many respects, this book is the culmination of twenty-five years of serious reflection on political theology. This has brought me into contact with so many interesting people and institutions around the world that I cannot even begin to recognize all those who have contributed to my work in one way or another. But I am pleased to be able to thank a number of individuals who have been especially helpful to me as I created this volume.

I wish first to recognize the board and staff at my employer, Westminster Seminary California, and especially my students and faculty colleagues. I can hardly imagine producing this volume without the opportunities for teaching, research, student interaction, and faculty collaboration that WSC has given me. It is a privilege to work for an institution that values the sort of inquiry this book represents.

I also offer profound thanks to John Witte and his colleagues at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, especially Amy Wheeler. Prof. Witte has been a great encouragement to me for many years as I have pondered the natural law tradition, the two kingdoms doctrine, and challenges of political theology. He is a model of scholarly grace, and I thank him for all the help he has offered me, in this project and beyond. I’m especially grateful for his organizing a virtual symposium on a draft manuscript of the present volume, which was of great assistance in refining my work. Thank you to the symposium participants: Nick Aroney, Jonathan Burnside, Jonathan Chaplin, Sam Gregg, Michael Welker, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. I wish I could have presented to them the final version of this book and heard their comments on that instead of on an inferior draft. But I recognize that their critical interaction with that draft was an important step in producing a better version.

I also extend my thanks to the Henry Luce Foundation and the Association of Theological Schools for awarding me a Henry Luce III Fellowship in Theology for 2016–17. This was a great honor and an amazing opportunity for me as a scholar. The timing of the fellowship was absolutely perfect and allowed me to write a complete draft of this book during a period of peaceful focus that would have been impossible otherwise. Thanks especially to Stephen Graham for his skillful administration of this program, and for others who supported it, including Margaret Fitzgerald, Michael Gilligan, Jonathan VanAntwerpen, and Leah Wright.

I express my gratitude also to the Kern Family Foundation, and especially to Greg Forster, for awarding me a grant some years earlier. This grant funded several research trips that allowed me to develop some of the earliest material that would find its way into this book.

Thank you to several friends and colleagues who took the time to read the whole of my draft manuscript and offered extensive comments on the whole (no small task, I well recognize): Allison and Greg Church, Mike Horton, Lance Kinzer, Manfred Svensson, and Matt Tuininga. I especially appreciate Manfred’s willingness to fly all the way from Chile to Pittsburgh to present a few of his comments publicly.

Many others sacrificed their time to give me valuable feedback on smaller pieces of this project or to give me opportunities to present my ideas-in-progress. I do not take this generosity for granted. With apologies to those I have surely failed to mention, let me express gratitude to Raju Abraham, Neil Arner, Steve Baugh, Tom Bell, Hays Bierman, John Bolt, Bill Brewbaker, Ad de Bruijne, Elizabeth Agnew Cochran, Bob Cochran, Doug Coyle, Jon Crowe, Perry Dane, Mike De Boer, Eric Descheemaeker, Bryan Estelle, John Fesko, Mark Graham, Jennifer Herdt, Dennis Johnson, Simon Jooste, Constance Youngwon Lee, Brad Littlejohn, Josh Maloney, Bill Reddinger, Rebecca Rine, Donald Roth, Josh Van Ee, Koos Vorster, Nico Vorster, Pieter Vos, and Kevin Walton.

Many thanks to Zondervan for taking up this project. I thank Ryan Pazdur, in particular, for his enthusiasm for my book and for his many helpful ideas for bringing it to its final form.

Most of all, my thanks to Katherine and Jack for all sorts of support and encouragement along the way. They would deserve the highest appreciation even if the former wasn’t an inter-library-loaner extraordinaire and the latter didn’t want to have long conversations about polycentrism and conservative liberalism.

Several parts of this book originated in articles I have written over the past decade exploring issues addressed here. I am grateful to the respective editors and publishers for permission to adapt material from these pieces: Legal Polycentrism: A Christian Theological and Jurisprudential Evaluation, Journal of Law and Religion 32, no. 3 (November 2017): 383–405; Justice Tempered by Forbearance: Why Christian Love Is an Improper Category to Apply to Civil Law, in Agape, Justice, and Law: How Might Christian Love Shape Law?, ed. Robert F. Cochran Jr. and Zachary R. Calo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 125–47; Learning the Natural Law as Maturation in Wisdom, In die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi 50, no. 1 (2016): 1–9; Power to the People: Revisiting Civil Resistance in Romans 13:1–7 in Light of the Noahic Covenant, Journal of Law and Religion 31, no. 1 (March 2016): 4–18; The Protectionist Purpose of Law: A Moral Case from the Biblical Covenant with Noah, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 35, no. 2 (Fall/ Winter 2015): 101–17; Natural Law for Reformed Theology: A Proposal for Contemporary Reappropriation, Journal of Reformed Theology 9 (2015): 117–30; Natural Rights in Noahic Perspective, Faulkner Law Review 6, no. 1 (Fall 2014): 103–34; The Natural Law and Liberal Traditions: Heritage (and Hope?) of Western Civilization, in The Law of God: Exploring God and Civilization, ed. Pieter Vos and Onno Zijlstra (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 64–83; The Market Economy and Christian Ethics: Refocusing Debate Through the Two-Kingdoms Doctrine, Journal of Markets and Morality 17 (Spring 2014): 11–45; and A Natural Law Right to Religious Freedom: A Reformed Perspective, International Journal for Religious Freedom 5, no. 2 (2012): 135–46.

Perhaps this book reflects the spirit of my great-great-great-grandfather, Bastiaan van Drunen, who defied the state and (the state) church by hosting Reformed worship in his home in the mid to late 1830s in Sleeuwijk, North Brabant, Netherlands.

Matthew 8:20.

INTRODUCTION

To say that there are deep divisions within Western political communities is to state the obvious. As sharp as the disagreements are about identity politics, nationalism, or democratic socialism, at least everyone seems to agree that Western societies are plagued by profound disagreements and mutual suspicion. The historical events that have brought us to our current state of affairs are complex. But one way to describe our contemporary situation is that we are wrestling with life after Christendom.

By Christendom I mean the vision of Christian civilization that emerged in the very early medieval period and stretched well into the modern era, primarily in the West. Under Christendom, Christianity sought to be a civil power as well as a spiritual power. Most Western Christians lived within institutionally unified Christian societies in which political officials supported and protected the (true) church while suppressing heresies and non-Christian religions. While church, state, and other social institutions were technically distinct, they were linked in devotion to a common Christian culture. Few people would have found it controversial to say that their community was a Christian society. While the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation changed the character of Christendom in profound ways, it did not end Christendom itself.

That began to change as Western history moved into the so-called modern era. Various Enlightenment philosophies challenged orthodox theological beliefs, and political liberalism challenged the civil influence of churches and other traditional bodies. Communities began to grant new liberties to religious dissenters, and churches began to reexamine their long-standing objections to such liberties. Of course, Christendom did not die all at once or in the same way in every place. Yet slowly but surely, the habits, assumptions, and structures of Christendom withered away. Western societies became openly pluralistic in ways previous generations could not have imagined. New ways of thinking and acting came to prominence that no one could mistake for Christianity. Christian faith and Christian churches did not disappear, but Christendom gradually did.

Was the fall of Christendom a positive development? That has been a controversial question, even among Christians themselves. For the many Christians who held minority convictions in their societies, a post-Christendom world has brought new opportunities to express and promote their faith without persecution. The demise of Christendom has also corresponded with a period of unprecedented technological development and economic growth, which has produced a meteoric increase of health, wealth, and longevity for billions of people around the globe. Yet even many Christians with affection for religious liberty and capitalism find weighty reasons for unease. Amid the expanding opportunities and material prosperity, the post-Christendom world has witnessed the rise of violent ideologies, worldwide wars, upheavals in moral standards, and a decline in church attendance throughout the West. Life after Christendom has been a mixed experience. Christians have been trying to figure out how to navigate faithfully in such a world for quite a while now but seem to be as puzzled and divided about it as ever.

This is a book about politics after Christendom, but only in part. It does indeed attempt to set out a political theology appropriate for the pluralistic world that post-Christendom societies have become. But I also make a bigger claim: Christians do not need a new and special kind of political theology for life after Christendom. Rather, Scripture itself provides a political-theological vision perfectly suited for a post-Christendom world. The New Testament envisions Christians living in a world such as this and prepares them for it. Scripture equips Christians to understand and function within societies that will remain foreign and often hostile to them. And it never hints that Christians ought to seek the kind of integrated Christian society that Christendom represented, even were that possible. A politics after Christendom is a perennial political theology.

A POLITICAL-THEOLOGICAL VISION

What does this look like? Part 1 presents a biblical vision for political theology. That is to say, part 1 reflects theologically upon public life and political community in these last days following Christ’s resurrection and ascension.¹ By political community, I refer to the social life of the polis, that is, the city: not smaller and often voluntary communities such as families, clubs, or businesses, but the larger community in a geographical region in which individuals and smaller communities interrelate.² Political communities ordinarily have governments, but government is not the same thing as political community. Political is a broader term than governmental.³ From a Christian theological perspective, civil government is only one of many distinct but related institutions that God has ordained to promote a degree of justice, peace, and prosperity in common human life.

The theological vision of part 1 identifies four key characteristics of political institutions. First, political institutions are legitimate. God himself has ordained the existence and authority of our civil laws, governments, and officials. Second, political institutions are provisional. God has ordained them not as enduring bodies that will govern us in the new creation but as temporary bodies meant to promote a measure of peace and justice in this present, fallen world. Third, political institutions are common. God did not establish these institutions simply for the benefit of Christians, or simply for the benefit of people from a certain location or ethnicity, but for the benefit of all humans alike. Finally, political institutions are accountable. These institutions are under God’s law and God’s authority. He established them to promote peace and justice, and thus political institutions must ultimately answer to God himself.

In accord with these four characteristics, the political theology of part 1 rejects the notion that Christians should identify their political communities with the kingdom of God proclaimed in the New Testament. Many of the most popular contemporary political theologies contend that Christians should seek to redeem or transform their political communities so that these communities might somehow manifest and anticipate Christ’s coming kingdom. This book promotes a different view. God has instituted and rules political communities, and Christians should be active within them and promote their welfare. But Christians ought not to seek the kingdom within such communities. The kingdom of God proclaimed in the New Testament is ultimately the coming new creation, and the church of Jesus Christ is the one present community God has appointed to manifest and anticipate that kingdom here and now. The fact that Christians are already citizens of Christ’s kingdom means that they are always homeless in this world to some degree. To use Scripture’s own language, Christians are sojourners and exiles within their political communities.

This perspective encourages contemporary Christians to be circumspect and thus to avoid the temptations of cultural pessimism and optimism. This book does not embrace the pessimistic outlook of some recent writers who portray the West as moving unstoppably into a dark age in which Christians will be mostly shut out of ordinary political life. But neither does it embrace a narrative of inevitable cultural progress. The short-term future is uncertain, and the long-term future all the more so. God’s providence is mysterious, and one thing we know about the future is that it will defy our confident predictions. But if, theologically speaking, Christians are always sojourners and exiles in this present world, they should always strive for a healthy balance of vigilance in the face of opposition and confidence in God’s preserving mercies. Some periods of time are relatively peaceful and prosperous for Christians and other periods more dire. But in all circumstances, Christians need healthy churches, a critical posture toward the deceits of the world, an appreciation for the goods and blessings around them, and an eagerness to participate with excellence in their political communities.

Part 2 moves from political theology to political ethics.⁴ It seeks to answer some more specific questions: How should this biblical vision shape the way Christians think about pressing issues of political and legal theory? What are the implications of a biblical political theology for controversies about religious liberty, justice, rights, authority, resistance, and related matters? Part 2 does not argue that there is a single, detailed public policy agenda that all Christians are obligated to embrace. Rather, it explores what sort of framework the political theology of part 1 provides for Christians confronting ongoing debates in the public square. In summary, I propose a framework that suggests a strong measure of political tolerance and religious liberty, the foundational importance of marriage and family for the health of human communities, the benefits (and risks) of a market or enterprise economy, the necessity of pursuing justice (a justice that is retributive, compensatory, forbearing, and restorative), the good of the rule of law rather than human will, the legitimate authority of civil government under certain conditions, and the lawfulness of resistance to unjust authorities.

The final chapter reflects on the highly controversial ideas of liberalism, conservatism, progressivism, and nationalism, and traditions that lie behind them. How people evaluate such ideas depends in part on how they define them, which is always up for debate. But as a way of bringing my broader argument to conclusion, I will suggest that a Christian political theology points in the direction of a conservative liberalism. Such an outlook is liberal because it recognizes the inevitability of pluralism in our political communities and seeks just and peaceful ways for different kinds of people to live together. And it is conservative because it honors the wisdom accumulated in previous generations and values (critically) the traditions that embody it.

Throughout the book, I will interact with writers coming from many different perspectives and drawing on various fields of expertise. Among my interlocutors are Christian theologians of various eras (including Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin), prominent political theologians of recent years (including Hauerwas, O’Donovan, and Wolterstorff), contemporary Christian cultural commentators (including MacIntyre, Hunter, and Dreher), and secular legal and political theorists (including Rawls, Hayek, and Dworkin).

THE THEOLOGICAL IDEAS AT WORK

To develop and defend the political theology summarized above, I make use of several classical theological doctrines. Although I present a political-theological vision different from the long-standing vision of Christendom, I am not inventing new categories or vocabulary. Some readers may be sympathetic to this book’s political theology yet prefer not to speak of one or more of the classical doctrines I utilize. That could simply be a healthy disagreement among friends. Yet I believe these doctrines are of enduring value for understanding the issues before us. I mention four of them here.

The first is natural law. Natural law, in short, refers to God’s basic moral will for the human race, revealed in the created order itself, such that all people have the capacity to understand and respond to it (although they also sinfully distort it). Natural law was a staple of medieval and Reformation theology, and of many Christian thinkers since. Although many twentieth-century Protestants came to regard natural law as foreign to Reformation Christianity, there has been a renaissance of interest in Protestant natural-law theory in the early twenty-first century. This present book, in part, seeks to contribute to that renaissance. It makes a new argument for the traditional Christian idea that natural law is foundational for human law.

This book makes use of another classical idea: Augustine’s two cities. For Augustine, Christians are citizens of the city of God, the heavenly new creation, while unbelievers are citizens of another city, doomed to destruction. Through his two-cities imagery, Augustine described Christians as pilgrims in this world, on the way to their everlasting home. Christians intermingle with unbelievers during their pilgrimage and share many earthly things in common with them. Nevertheless, a strong spiritual antithesis distinguishes one from the other. The present book portrays the Christian life as one of pilgrimage and thereby stands in the two-cities tradition.

But this book also makes use of the idea of two kingdoms, particularly as developed in early Reformed theology. This idea is different from Augustine’s two cities, though it is compatible with it. It teaches that God rules all things but does so in a twofold way. God exercises a common rule by which he preserves the world and ordains political government and other social institutions. God also exercises a redemptive rule by which he builds his church and brings the new creation. By analyzing political communities in terms of God’s common rule, this book works within the two-kingdoms tradition.

A fourth traditional idea this book utilizes is familiar to everyone who reads Scripture: the biblical covenants. At key junctures in biblical history, God entered into covenants with his creatures. In my own Reformed tradition, theologians have often used these biblical covenants as a way to organize and interpret the broader message of Scripture. While this book gives attention to many of the biblical covenants, it makes special use of the covenant with Noah (Gen 8:21–9:17). The Noahic covenant, I argue, is foundational for understanding the revelation of God’s will in the natural law, the character of Christians’ pilgrimage in the present age, and the nature of God’s common rule. Although a multitude of Christian writers have utilized doctrines of natural law, the two cities, and the two kingdoms to try to understand Christians’ place in their political communities, the present book is unique in trying to explain all of these ideas in the context of the biblical covenants.

Christians have been arguing about the issues before us for a very long time and undoubtedly will continue to do so until Christ returns. That should put this present contribution to political theology in perspective. Yet Christians can surely agree that living just and fruitful lives that bless our neighbors is an important part of Christian responsibility in this age as we serve the living and true God and wait for his Son from heaven (1 Thess 1:9–10). I hope this volume can promote that goal in some way.

NOTES

1. My nontechnical use of political theology may bear resemblance to Mark Lilla’s broad conception of political theology as the mode of thinking of people who have appealed to God when reflecting on political questions, or as discourse about political authority based on a revealed divine nexus. See The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West (New York: Knopf, 2007), 3, 23.

2. This conception resembles Aristotle’s basic idea of the polis as the association that is highest and inclusive of all other associations, such as the household. See his Politics 1.A.1.1 (1252a). But my understanding of political communities as instituted and sustained by God’s temporal, common grace, in distinction from God’s redemptive grace that brings new creation—as I will explain and defend at some length—makes me hesitant to use Aristotle’s language of the polis as the final and perfect association that exists for the sake of a good life; see Politics 1.A.2.8 (1252b). For English translation, see The Politics of Aristotle, ed. and trans. Ernest Barker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962). From my theological perspective, I might have opted for a broader definition of political. For example, Jonathan Leeman defines politics as the "mediating of God’s covenantal rule" (italics his) and thus argues that the church is a political institution; see Political Church: The Local Assembly as Embassy of Christ’s Rule (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2016), 237. The church is indeed political under such a definition. But this is not my working definition here.

3. James K. A. Smith takes a similar view of political theology and thus chooses to call it public theology. See Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 11–13. Another term I perhaps could have used is civil society, although that too has had a variety of nuances. Civil society is basically just the Latin version of the Greek koinonia politike. See Stephen B. Smith, Modernity and Its Discontents: Making and Unmaking the Bourgeois from Machiavelli to Bellow (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 156.

4. I borrow this terminology from Oliver O’Donovan, who acknowledges the imprecision of distinguishing these disciplines in this manner; see The Ways of Judgment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), ix–x.

PART 1

POLITICAL

THEOLOGY

CHAPTER 1

LEGITIMATE, BUT PROVISIONAL, COMMON, BUT ACCOUNTABLE

The Contours of a Christian Political Theology

Political theology is complex and controversial, and it is not at all obvious where to start. I believe it will be helpful to begin by identifying and defending a few basic ideas that provide an overview of a biblically grounded political theology. This should lay an excellent foundation for our study in the chapters that follow. After this, I will step back and consider where these foundational ideas fit in the long history of Christian political-theological reflection. This discussion will help readers understand how my project resembles and differs from other important political theologies of past and present.

The foundational political-theological ideas of this book are simple to state and crucial to understand but, as Christian theological history suggests, not easy to work out in detail. The ideas are these: God has ordained civil government—as the ruling authority of political communities—to be legitimate, but provisional, and to be common, but accountable. Let us consider each of these in turn.

LEGITIMATE

First, civil government is legitimate. By this I mean that civil government has a right and even an obligation to carry out its proper work. As argued later, civil government’s proper work is to promote justice. Thus when civil governments and political officials promote justice within a particular society, they are not engaging in an act of usurpation but exercising legitimate authority. Although they may come to power by different routes, furthermore, God is the ultimate source of their legitimacy.

Several New Testament texts speak explicitly of civil government and have been foundational for Christian thinking about legitimate political authority. According to Paul, there is no governing authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God (Rom 13:1). God establishes these authorities for beneficial purposes, namely, to approve of those who do good and to bear the sword as an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer (Rom 13:3–4). Along similar lines, Peter writes of governors as sent by him [God] to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good (1 Pet 2:14). As such, these magistrates are God’s servants and ministers (Rom 13:4, 6). Doing their work well enables Christians to lead a peaceful and quiet life (1 Tim 2:2). Since God has ordained civil magistrates for such propitious ends, Christians ought to submit to them, honor them, pay taxes (Matt 22:16–21; Rom 13:1–2, 5–7; Tit 3:1; 1 Pet 2:13–17), and pray for them (1 Tim 2:1–2).

While these texts directly affirm political legitimacy, Acts does so indirectly through its account of the early church. Here the apostles implicitly acknowledge the legitimate authority of civil officials and the legal structures in which they operate. Paul had frequent confrontations with the powers of his day, and though they sometimes treated him roughly, he never challenged their offices or the governing laws. On several memorable occasions, he asserted his rights under Roman law, both to have a trial before punishment (Acts 16:37; 22:25) and to appeal to Caesar (25:11). In Corinth Paul was ready to defend himself in court, until the judge dismissed the charges (18:14–15), and in Caesarea he defended himself repeatedly (24:10–21; 26:2–23). In one of his court appearances, he addressed the governor with the sort of respect he commends in Romans 13: Knowing that for many years you have been a judge over this nation, I cheerfully make my defense (Acts 24:10). In fact, the various civil magistrates readers meet in the course of Paul’s ministry often act rather sensibly, recognizing what is just and acknowledging the limits of their jurisdiction (Acts 16:38–39; 18:14–16; 19:35–41; 22:25–29; 23:16–35; 27:42–43).

In the New Testament, Christians are not only obligated to recognize legitimate political authority but also free to hold civil office. Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector (Luke 19:2), a position the people despised. After seeing Jesus from a sycamore tree and hosting him at his house, Zacchaeus promised restitution for those he defrauded but did not demit his office—and Jesus approved (19:8–10). Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, was a God-fearing gentile who sought Peter’s preaching and was subsequently baptized (Acts 10). Some Jewish Christians initially objected to granting him full fellowship with the church because he was an uncircumcised gentile (11:1–3), but no one objected to admitting him because of his military office. Shortly thereafter, Sergius Paulus, a proconsul in Cyprus and man of intelligence, believed in Christ through Paul’s teaching (Acts 13:6–12). In these and other instances (cf. Luke 3:13–14; Rom 16:23), holding civil office created no obstacle to Christian faith. Although the New Testament never comments normatively on government work as a vocation for Christians, the fact that civil office was a nonissue in the conversion of political officials is consistent with the New Testament’s general affirmation of the state’s legitimacy.

This evidence for the legitimacy of state authority is not unique to the New Testament, for the Old Testament provided ample witness of it long before Christ’s coming. One of the important claims of the present book is that the transition from Old to New through Christ’s ministry effects no essential change in the nature, purpose, or legitimate authority of civil government, and we can begin to see evidence for this claim already here. In what follows, I comment only on what the Old Testament says about civil governments among the gentile nations. Legitimate political authority also existed among the Israelites as they lived in their promised land under the law of Moses, but their experience was unique in important respects. Chapters 2 and 3 address this issue. For now, I simply consider some of the extensive evidence for political legitimacy among the gentile nations, among which the Roman Empire later emerged.

The Old Testament often recounts how God used civil magistrates to accomplish his good purposes, particularly with respect to his covenant people. Pharaoh, ruler of Egypt, offered provision and protection for Jacob’s family during famine (Gen 47), the king of Moab sheltered David and his family from the tyranny of Saul (1 Sam 22:3–4), and Israel in Babylonian exile enjoyed a degree of prosperity under Nebuchadnezzar (Jer 29:5–7). Subsequently, Cyrus the Persian restored the Israelites to their land (2 Chr 36:22–23; Ezra 1; Isa 45:1–13), and his successors supported them at several points of crisis (Ezra 6:1–5; Neh 2:1–8).

Although these incidents display how God used civil authority in his providential government of the world, they do not necessarily prove its legitimacy, since God sometimes uses evil things for his own ends. But legitimacy is clearly evident in several other texts, in which God’s people, with implicit or explicit divine blessing, actively acknowledge the work of gentile governments and participate in it. Three interesting things deserve mention. First, God’s servants occasionally made covenants with rulers of gentile nations. It is striking that the same Hebrew word describes both God’s covenants with human partners and intrahuman political treaties. These political covenants are solemn oaths that establish mutual recognition and responsibilities. Abraham entered such a covenant with King Abimelech of Gerar (Gen 21:22–32), and his son Isaac followed suit (Gen 26:26–31). Kings David and Solomon had friendly relationships with several foreign rulers (e.g., 2 Sam 10:1–2; 1 Kgs 10:1–13), but the most important seems to be the partnership with Hiram king of Tyre, with whom Solomon did extensive business (1 Kgs 5) and entered a covenant (5:12; 5:26). The Mosaic law prohibited Israel from making covenants with nations within the bounds of their promised land (Deut 7:1–2). Yet Solomon’s covenant with Hiram, a manifestation of his wisdom (1 Kgs 5:12), indicates that legitimate civil authority continued to exist among gentile nations elsewhere, even during the golden age of the Israelite theocracy.

Second, a number of Old Testament saints held high political office under gentile governments. Joseph, a God-fearing man who maintained hope in the promises to Abraham (e.g., 39:4–12; 42:18; 50:24–25), was second only to Pharaoh in the land of Egypt (41:38–44). During the exile, the godly Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego entered the Babylonian civil service with distinction (Dan 1) and later assumed positions of power (Dan 2:48–49). After the Medes and Persians overthrew Babylon, Daniel assumed another high position under Darius (Dan 6:1–3). He was such a faithful Persian civil servant that his enemies could find no ground to accuse him with regard to the [Persian] kingdom (6:4). The zealously pious Nehemiah (e.g., Neh 13) was cupbearer to a later Persian king, Artaxerxes (Neh 1–2). Another Persian king, Ahasuerus, took a Jew for his queen (Esther 2) and elevated her uncle Mordechai to second in command (10:3). It would be remarkable enough to know that members of God’s covenant people held even lowly civil office under three of the most powerful kingdoms of the ancient world; it is a wonder to learn that they assumed positions of the greatest authority short of being head of state.

Third, Jeremiah 27 and 29 provide perhaps the closest Old Testament counterpart to the explicit descriptions of government legitimacy and its corresponding obligations found in Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2. As God prepared Judah for exile, he declared to the rulers of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon, as well as to Judah, that he gives the earth to whomever he pleases and that he had given their lands to his servant Nebuchadnezzar (Jer 27:2–6). Therefore, they were all to submit to Nebuchadnezzar for their own good (27:7–22). Accordingly, Jeremiah’s letter to the first wave of Jewish exiles exhorted them not only to live normal lives in Babylon (29:5–6) but also to seek its welfare and to pray for it (29:7). Thus a great many pieces of New Testament teaching about the legitimacy of civil authority find precedent here: God’s appointment, the magistrate as divine servant, and the peoples’ obligation to submit to their magistrates and pray for them.

LEGITIMATE, BUT PROVISIONAL

The legitimacy of civil government needs to be complemented by another crucial biblical idea: civil government is provisional. Provisional refers to something set in place for a limited time and purpose until something greater arrives. Civil government is an important institution but will not endure forever. It is a valuable institution but not of highest value. It is penultimate rather than ultimate. Only the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, inchoately manifest now in the church and climactically revealed in the New Jerusalem, is of ultimate value and importance.

Civil government is legitimate but provisional. A Christian political theology ought to affirm both simultaneously.

Daniel 2 captures this point vividly. Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of an imposing image with head of gold, chest and arms of silver, midsection and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay. A stone of nonhuman origin struck the image and broke it into pieces, which the wind carried away without leaving a trace (2:31–35). God revealed the interpretation to Daniel. God had granted Nebuchadnezzar a great kingdom and made him the head of gold. After his kingdom, God would raise up other, weaker kingdoms, represented by the lower parts of the image. But in the days of the latter kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever (2:36–45). Earthly kings and kingdoms are provisional. They come and go. But the eschatological kingdom of God will endure.

The New Testament texts considered in the previous section also communicate the provisionality of civil government. God commissions civil magistrates to promote justice by praising the good and punishing evildoers (Rom 13:3–4; 1 Pet 2:14), and in so doing they enable people to live peaceful and quiet lives (1 Tim 2:2). These are genuine goods, objects of thanksgiving for those who enjoy them. But the New Testament nowhere ascribes any greater task to civil government. Magistrates do not forgive sins, reconcile people with God, or usher in the new creation. Civil officials may bear the sword (Rom 13:4), but they do not wield the keys of the kingdom, which Christ entrusted to his church (Matt 16:18–19).

Thus it is no surprise that the New Testament steers Christians away from staking very much upon government institutions. Christians may avail themselves of civil justice, pray for their civil authorities, and even exercise political office, but they should always keep affairs of state in proper perspective. No affection Christians may feel toward their political communities can compare to their allegiance toward Christ’s heavenly kingdom. The Philippian Christians lived in a Roman colony, yet Paul declared that their citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3:20). Christians, already raised up with Christ, should seek the things that are above, not things that are on earth; their lives are hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:1–3). Long ago, Abraham, living by faith, was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God (Heb 11:10). Abraham sought a homeland, a better country, that is, a heavenly one (Heb 11:14, 16). Thus believers today say, Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come (Heb 13:12). Paul warns Christians about becoming absorbed in the affairs of the world, such as marriage or commerce, for the present form of this world is passing away (1 Cor 7:29–31). Christians do not avoid such affairs but retain a modest detachment and refuse to grant them all-consuming importance. They may have citizen status in their cities of residence, but they are sojourners and exiles on earth, as the saints of old (1 Pet 2:11; Heb 11:13).

Scripture also communicates the provisional character of legitimate civil institutions by highlighting the precarious and fleeting nature of political power. God repeatedly exposes the weakness of those who appear to be strong. The mighty Pharaoh helplessly watched the divine plagues destroy his country and, like the lowliest pauper, lost his firstborn son (Exod 7–12). The indomitable Sennacherib, king of Assyria, lost 185,000 soldiers in a single night by the angel of the Lord and then returned home to be killed by his sons (2 Kgs 18–19). Nebuchadnezzar, while admiring Babylon and basking in his own majesty, was driven into the fields and grew claws, ate grass, and lived with the beasts (Dan 4). The last king of the Babylonian empire, Belshazzar, gave a feast for a thousand of his lords and then lost control of his bowels before them when a mysterious hand wrote on the wall. Later that night he lost his kingdom (Dan 5). Shortly after King Herod executed the apostle James, he was struck down by the angel of the Lord and eaten by worms while wearing his finest apparel (Acts 12). As Isaiah declares, Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales (40:15). God

brings princes to nothing,

and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,

scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,

when he blows on them, and they wither,

and the tempest carries them off like stubble. (40:23–24)

Scripture displays the provisionality of legitimate civil authority in at least one other striking way: though God commissions magistrates to promote justice, they are among the grandest perpetrators of evil. Authority itself is a good. But civil governments in a fallen world are intractably sinful institutions. The power of the sword that enables them to keep some evil at bay also enables them to do evil on a more vicious scale than private parties. Civil governments and civil offices are part of this present age that is passing away.

Biblical examples are legion. The first civil officials to appear in the biblical canon are polygamist kings who take whatever women they choose (Gen 6:1–4) and mighty warriors who wreak violence on the earth (Gen 6:11). The last civil officials to appear in the canon lament the fall of the mysterious Babylon, that great enemy of God, and gather to make war against God on the last day (Rev 18:9–10; 19:17–19). In between, we find Pharaoh enslaving Israel and ordering the mass murder of its baby boys (Exod 1:8–22), Nebuchadnezzar requiring worship of an idol under threat of death by fiery furnace (Dan 3), Darius requiring exclusive prayer to himself under threat of death by lions’ den (Dan 6), Haman planning genocide (Esther 3), Herod beheading James and imprisoning Peter (Acts 12:1–5), and anonymous magistrates beating Paul and Silas and imprisoning them without trial (Acts 16:19–24). Satan claimed power over the kingdoms of the world (Luke 4:6), and a certain sway he surely enjoys (e.g., Eph 2:2). Christians may seek and pray for justice from civil officials, but they should not be surprised to be persecuted instead.

Civil government is thus legitimate but provisional. Neither its legitimacy nor its provisionality cancels out the other. The political theology unfolded in this book strives to uphold both legitimacy and provisionality simultaneously.

COMMON

The other pair of truths is that civil governments are common but accountable. God has ordained civil government to wield authority in political communities for the benefit of the human race in common. Government is not for some sorts of people rather than other sorts. One type of government is not to serve those of one ethnic or religious identity and an essentially different type of government to serve those of a different identity. Yet civil governments are also morally accountable. They should not be, and in fact cannot be, neutral. The way to achieve and maintain commonality is not by seeking a legal framework that makes no moral judgments and is hence independent of any philosophical or theological perspective. Instead, civil governments are accountable to God and his standards of justice. Therefore, a Christian political theology ought to teach and defend simultaneously that God designed civil governments to be common but accountable. This is a fiendishly difficult subject in need of much reflection in later chapters. For now, I simply outline some of the basic biblical evidence pointing in this direction.

Turning first to the theme of commonality, we find help again in Romans 13. Several features of the text point to the common nature of civil government. Paul begins by exhorting every person to be subject to the governing authorities and then adds that there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God (13:1). This means, at least generally, that everywhere civil government exists it is divinely ordained and thus legitimate and that everyone who lives in a community with a government should submit to its authority. Paul also identifies the basic purpose for which government exists: to be a servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer (13:4).

If we put these pieces together, we do not get a complete theory of political commonality, but we begin to see a basic outline. Where government exists, it is obligated to promote justice on God’s behalf, approving those doing good and punishing wrongdoers. Paul does not specify that this is for gentiles rather than Jews (or vice versa) or for Romans rather than Scythians (or vice versa). Neither does Paul specify that this is for Christians rather than for pagans (or vice versa). The apostle implies that civil government is obligated to administer justice toward the entire human community within its jurisdiction without discriminating by ethnic or religious identity. To be sure, in order to carry out its responsibilities civil government must make judgments that discriminate between good acts deserving praise and evil acts deserving punishment, and such moral judgments are inseparable from one’s cultural background and religious convictions (to anticipate the accountable discussion below). Yet Paul’s use of generic terms for good and evil in Romans 13:1–7 is striking in context and carries important implications. While Paul unpacks an explicitly Christ-shaped and Christ-directed ethic for the Christian community in the texts immediately preceding and immediately following, in 13:1–7 he makes no mention of Christ or redemption but merely speaks of good and evil in general for the entire human community before God. By implication, government’s discernment of good and evil for purposes of civil judgment is not meant to discriminate between Christian and non-Christian. From the other direction, every person within the jurisdiction of a civil government is obligated to honor and submit to it as it carries out its obligation to administer justice. According to Paul, Jews and gentiles, Romans and Scythians, and Christians and pagans have identical responsibilities toward their civil officials. In light of all this, to attempt to establish a designer government or boutique state aiming to serve one particular ethnic or religious constituency would run afoul of Paul’s teaching.

It is helpful again to consider the Old Testament roots of these New Testament ideas. The Old Testament speaks of many ancient governments and political rulers and, as considered above, confirms their legitimacy. Excluding again the unique case of Israel under the Mosaic law, we recognize that every one of these governments ruled communities that were predominantly if not exclusively gentile, and their magistrates, with possible exceptions, did not worship the God of Abraham. These ancient governments, we begin to see, were common to the human race, ruling all sorts of people.

This commonality becomes all the more evident when we remember that some members of Abraham’s household and of the holy nation of Israel had occasion to live under such governments, participate in the communities they ruled, and even assume civil office within them. Despite their ethnic and religious differences, when Israelite worshipers of Yahweh interacted with gentile idolaters in communities ruled by these governments, there were things that ought not to be done that both sides expected the other to avoid (see Gen 20:9; 34:7). This points to a common standard of justice akin to Paul’s appeal to good and evil in Romans 13. Old Testament saints did not believe their different religious or ethnic status disqualified them from seeking the welfare of these political communities, either as ordinary citizens (e.g., Jer 29:7) or as civil officials (e.g., Daniel). Furthermore, the saints who attained high political office showed no interest in using their power to turn their communities into holy theocracies. Joseph did not try to expunge Egyptian religion and permit only the worship of the God of Abraham; Daniel did not try to turn Babylon into a new Jerusalem.

Thus both Old and New Testaments indicate that God has ordained civil governments to be common, that is, to administer justice on behalf of all people within their jurisdiction. They are not meant to discriminate against people on the basis of their ethnic or religious identities.

COMMON, BUT ACCOUNTABLE

While affirming this notion of commonality, Christian political theology also ought to affirm that civil governments are morally accountable. Just as political legitimacy may tempt a person to deny political provisionality, so also political commonality may tempt a person to portray politics as morally neutral. After all, how can a political or legal system be structured so that it maintains an even hand when dealing with people of different ethnic origin or religious conviction? One attractive answer, popular in the contemporary West, is that laws and governmental institutions should be based upon notions of human reason that do not favor one group of people over another, providing a level playing field in which individuals and groups can freely live according to their own beliefs and values. This, it would seem, provides a setting that perfectly protects commonality.

Defining the precise nature of commonality and determining how to attain it are very difficult issues, but this quest for neutrality is not the solution. On the one hand, even were it desirable, such neutrality is simply impossible to attain. Many Christian and non-Christian writers have exposed the idea of neutral reason as a myth. Universal faculties of human reason exist, but how people understand and use them are inseparably intertwined with their fundamental religious and moral assumptions, whether they are consciously aware of them or not. Such notions also inevitably shape convictions about justice that underlie human laws and government institutions. The critiques of the quest for a religiously and morally neutral public life are so numerous and compelling that I say no more about it here.

But it is important to add, as a matter of Christian political theology, that this quest for neutrality, even were it